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From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Re: animal vs human rights, morality
Message-ID: <699@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Feb-85 10:34:23 EST
Article-I.D.: bunker.699
Posted: Fri Feb  1 10:34:23 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Feb-85 08:52:19 EST
References: <232@usl.UUCP> <694@bunker.UUCP> <1616@pur-phy.UUCP>
Organization: Bunker Ramo, Trumbull Ct
Lines: 40

> In article <694@bunker.UUCP> garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) writes:
> >
> >I disagree; I can certainly argue for the arguability of other differences.
> >E.g., only humans seem to be interested in moral questions.
> >
> Not all humans are interested in moral questions, or are even
> cognizant of them.  What about people who are so hopelessly retarded
> that they have no conception of "morality"?  They're just as human as
> the next person, who may have an IQ of 150, as far as I'm concerned.

I agree that the mentally retarded are also human.

> >....As I have tried to point out before, if intelligence is
> >the criterion for humanity or rights, then the time will come when
> >someone has to decide which humans have the required level of intelligence.
> >
> The same may be said about the required level of "moral awareness".  The
> yardstick of "moral awareness" is just as good (or as bad) as that of
> intelligence...

I was not suggesting "moral awareness" as a yardstick of humanity;
I was only disagreeing with the idea that intelligence is the only
thing that differentiates humans from animals.

> >If it is true, as I suggested above, that only humans ask questions
> >of the form, "Is action X moral?"...

> Many humans do not ask such questions.  Some sociopaths, for instance,
> seem to have no comprehension that their actions are wrong, or evil,
> so do they get struck from the roster of humans?  Or am I misunderstanding
> the whole point here?

I think that you did miss my point.  To me, the roster of humans
coincides with the roster of members of the species homo sapiens.
I was not proposing deleting any of the members of the latter from
the former; rather, I was arguing against deleting some homo sapiens
from the roster of humans on the grounds of intelligence (or,
equivalently, making a new list based on intelligence).

Gary Samuelson